Neville Longbottom and the Sorcerer's Stone
by Kaylee Snape
Summary: Most fanfiction answers the question "what if?" This particular story answers the particular question "What if Neville Longbottom had been marked by Voldemort as his equal?" I plan to go through all seven books, with plot twists and surprises galore!
1. Platform Nine and Three Quarters

Disclaimer: I do not own any of these people, places, or things, but I did come up with the idea all by myself, and even though I'm certain that there are plenty of stories like mine, I haven't read any of them. Thusly, I present to you the uninfluenced, unbiased, and as yet un-reviewed…

"Neville Longbottom and the Sorcerer's Stone"

Kaylee Snape

**Chapter 1 – Platform 9 ¾ **

"Gran, I've lost my toad again," Neville said quietly, looking all about the hustle and bustle of Platform Nine and Three Quarters. There was a lot to admire on his first trip to the station—witches and wizards of all ages, from little siblings of Hogwarts students to parents and grandparents of the same. There was his own grandmother, of course, standing right beside him. Neville didn't want to look up at his grandmother. He really didn't have to—he knew without looking precisely what her expression would be. Her brown eyes would be filled with their familiar air of disappointment, and her lined and careworn (Neville would never dare even think of his grandmother as wrinkled) face would be scowling darkly at him. Not the mean sort of scowl that indicated anger, but the sad sort of scowl that went one step further in proving to both of them that Neville would never be able to be the kind of wizard his father was.

"Oh, Neville," Gran sighed. "_How_ are you going to manage at Hogwarts? You know, your professors won't be nearly so understanding, searching up and down stairs, in hallways, under furniture…"

"outside on the grounds, and in the stomachs of other animals" Neville muttered under his breath. He had only heard this lecture about once or twice a day ever since his Great-Uncle Algie had given Trevor to him.

"What was that, Neville?"

"No-nothing, Gran. I'm sure I'll be able to keep up with him at Hogwarts." Neville finally dared to glance up just as his grandmother sniffed disapprovingly. (Oh, how many ways his grandmother could sniff. Neville could write a book—possibly a trilogy. _A New Sniff_, _The Sniff Strikes Back_, and _Return of the Sniff_. They would be best-sellers, complete with sound effects and detailed descriptions of the subtle layers of the sniff.)

"Pay attention, Neville!"

"I'm sorry, Gran. What were you saying?"

After an irritated sniff with just a hint of worry and a touch of pain, (What sort of pain? Pain of parting? Pain of having Neville as a grandson? Arthritis?) his grandmother continued, "I was saying that if you insist on staring off into space, the train will leave without you!"

"What about Trevor?"

"He's a smart toad. I'm certain he'll manage. Now, give your grandmother a hug, and off you go to Hogwarts."

Neville obeyed, feeling the familiar whap of his grandmother's giant red handbag as her arms tightened around him, pressing his nose into the scratchy fabric of her best green robes. Neville fought the urge to sneeze.

Gran released him, letting him step back, but keeping one hand on his shoulder. She looked at him critically. Neville wondered what she saw. Her grandson? The memory of her son? A chubby, clumsy reminder that the Longbottom name was destined for disgrace?

"Make your family proud, Neville."

Neville heard a strange scratchiness in his grandmother's voice. It couldn't be… she wasn't about to start _crying_, was she? "I will, Gran," he said determinedly.

He turned to grab his trunk and stumbled a little over the too-long hem of his school robes (so that you can grow into them, Gram had said).

Gran sighed again. This was a "back to reality" sigh, and Neville could picture perfectly the headshake that went along with it, the giant stuffed vulture perched atop her hat swinging side-to-side to echo her disappointment. "Be careful, Neville!" He had had nightmares about that vulture for years. He had asked for glasses for Christmas from ages five through ten, in hopes that the glasses would protect his eyes from the hungry stuffed vulture.

"I will, Gran. I'll be very careful." He picked up his trunk with one hand, and then quickly added a second hand because the scuffed brown trunk was much heavier than it appeared at first glance. Neville glanced down at his trunk, his eyes flicking to the well-worn gold letters "FJL" before darting away again to watch the dirty floor of the station. There was no sense tripping again, after all, especially when he ran the risk of dirtying or tearing the brand new black school robes that his grandmother had picked up at a special trip to Diagon Alley not one week before. (Neville tried not to think about the fact that he had already torn one set of robes when he was trying them on for his great uncle. Who knew that the "catwalk" used by Muggle models actually didn't involve walking like a cat?)

Just as Neville hoisted himself up onto the Hogwarts Express he heard the final, tender farewell from his grandmother, the last words she would speak to him in person until the Christmas hols. "Try not to forget anything on the train, Neville!"

Neville winced, and his chubby cheeks flamed a bright red—the same red of a squished tomato after someone has stomped on it, and all that is left is squashy, icky, juicy tomato pulp. Neville's hopes for a happy Hogwarts experience were squashy, icky, juicy tomato pulp, and his Gram's parting words were the foot that squished them. He could hear the other kids whispering as he dragged his trunk along the train, peering into compartment after compartment to find one that wasn't full.

"Neville Longbottom?" one kid with flaming red hair whispered to the girl sitting next to him, probably more loudly than he meant to, seeing as how Neville was standing just outside the compartment, debating whether to join these two or not. They looked like they might be first-years, same as him.

The girl looked up from the book she was reading and pushed her bushy brown hair out of her eyes. "Really?" she said in a voice that was somewhat less than a whisper, "I've read all about him!"

Neville quickly moved on before she could continue, but not quickly enough to miss her next statement, a statement comprised of four words that were, in Neville's opinion, the four worst words in the English language. "Neville Longbottom," the girl repeated, "The Boy Who Lived!"

I decided to give Frank Longbottom the middle name "Jared" after much debate and deliberation, based solely on the fact that the last person I saw before writing this part was my good friend Jared.

((A/N: That's it for the first chapter! Sorry it's so short—I just felt that it was a good stopping point, and I promise that most of the other chapters will be longer. I hope you enjoyed. Please do me the honor and favor of reviewing so that I have impetus to keep writing!))


	2. The Hogwarts Express

Disclaimer: I still don't own Harry Potter, since I haven't yet made enough money to buy out J.K. Rowling. I keep hoping, though.

**Chapter 2: The Hogwarts Express**

Finally, near the back of the train, Neville spotted a compartment with only one occupant: a small boy with messy black hair and vivid green eyes that were gazing dreamily out the window. Unsure, Neville paused at the door. What should he do? Should he speak? Should he knock? Should he bow genteelly and offer his hand and a calling card?

He finally settled for knocking tentatively on the door. The boy jerked, as if startled, and turned towards the door. "I was wondering if I could share your compartment?" Neville asked, his voice trailing off into a question.

"Sure!" the boy replied, scooting away from the window to demonstrate just how much room was available for sharing. "I'm Harry Potter!" He grinned and stuck out his hand.

Neville smiled back immediately, but it was another couple of minutes before he could offer his hand in return, as he was trying to shove his trunk up out of the way. Finally, Harry had to get up and help him. "Thanks," Neville said, turning to face Harry and smiling again, a little ruefully. "I couldn't have done that without you."

Harry shook his head. "I just steadied it—you did all the real work."

Neville grinned—a real grin this time, not a shy smile. "Yeah, well, thanks anyway, Harry."

"You didn't tell me your name" Harry reminded him."

"Oh, sorry—I'm Neville. Neville Longbottom."

Harry's eyes widened, and his glance flicked to Neville's forehead. Neville sighed, and pushed up his bangs to display an old scar in the shape of a lightning bolt. His grandmother hadn't wanted him to grow bangs. She was of the opinion that he should display his scar proudly, as it was the badge of honor of his parents. They _died_ to give him that scar, and was he really going to cover it up like some diffident, withdrawn, weak-willed Hufflepuff? Neville insisted, though, one of the only times that he argued with his grandmother and won. He couldn't stand the way people stared at him—it made him nervous, and even more likely to trip over something large and in the way. Not that he got that reaction regularly—he didn't often venture into the more populated parts of the wizarding world, preferring to stay at home with his family. It was boring, but at least no one there tried to make him into a hero. They all knew who he really was—a boy only one charm away from being a complete squib.

"Wicked," Harry whispered, staring at the scar. "I mean, er…" Harry blushed, trailing off. "Sorry?"

Neville smiled and let his bangs fall back over his scar. "Don't worry about it. It's really no big deal. So, er, are you a first year too?"

Harry grinned, and Neville could tell that he was relieved to have the conversation back in the territory of safety. "Yeah, I am. I wonder what it'll be like?"

"Well, me Gram says that they'll teach you lots of different spells and you have to spend most of the day studying or you'll fall behind."

"Really?" Harry wrinkled his nose. "I skimmed a few of our books—not really reading, you understand." Neville nodded—he did indeed understand. Only know-it-alls and show-offs really read the books before the school year began. "But none of the beginning spells seemed that hard."

"Maybe not for you, but I'm not that good at magic," Neville admitted. He figured he may as well get that out into the open, just in case this boy was talking to him under the false pretenses that the Neville Longbottom was The Boy Who Lived To Pass All His Classes Spectacularly And Bring Those Around Him To Equal Fame And Glory.

Harry looked thoughtful, and Neville fervently hoped that he wasn't thinking of that too-long acronym and whether "TBWLTPAHCSABTAHTEFAG" could spell anything else.

**"**Actually," Harry began, running a hand absently through his black hair so that it stuck up even more oddly than usual, "I don't see how you can say that until you've been to Hogwarts. I mean, maybe you just haven't had the right teacher. My Uncle Remus tried to set me up with this tutor for a few months, Mr. Grodd, and I just couldn't learn anything from him. Finally, Uncle Remus decided to teach me himself, and I learned everything real quickly. It was the teacher's fault I couldn't do the spells he tried to teach me, not mine."

"I could be, I guess," Neville said doubtfully, "but I dunno." Now, to change the topic of conversation… "So, do you live with your uncle, then?"

"Yeah," Harry nodded, "he's not actually my uncle, more like a friend of the family, but he's taken care of me ever since I can remember. What about you, do you live with your grandmother?"

"Gran and her brother—my Great-Uncle Algie. It's not bad, just kind of quiet, mostly, unless they're helping me with my magic. Then it's the opposite of quiet. I'll try to do a spell and end up with an explosion, or something will catch on fire, or sometimes, a bunny will appear."

"A bunny?" Harry asked, disbelieving.

Neville nodded. "A bunny. It's happened something like ten times with ten different spells. We have a rabbit petting zoo in our backyard now. Uncle Algie keeps threatening to charge admission."

"I think I prefer the explosions."

"Did someone say explosions?" a new voice asked from the doorway of the compartment. Neville looked towards the door and blinked a few times to clear his vision. He was seeing double—there were two boys with flame-red hair and identical freckles. Everything about them was identical, down to the wicked grin and the eyes that glistened with the memories of a thousand and one pranks.

"Because if someone had mentioned explosions" said the hallucination on the left, "we would have to introduce ourselves as the Masters of Explosions at Hogwarts, Pranksters Extraordinaire-"

"The Droll Duo, The Wise-Cracking Weasleys-"

"More commonly called Fred and George Weasley, respectively. That means I'm Fred-"

"And I'm George."

"At your service," they added together, bowing perfectly in sync and holding out their hands like a pair of identical dolls… erm, action figures.

Harry was closest to the door and got the dubious honor of shaking both their hands. "Harry Potter pleased to meet you," he muttered, looking unsure as to whether he should laugh or back away slowly.

Neville followed suit, hoping he wouldn't turn into a bunny… or a stuffed vulture. "Neville Longbottom a pleasure to make your acquaintance."

"We had heard that you were in this compartment-"

"Because we hear almost everything-"

"And so we thought we might introduce ourselves-"

"And see if there was anything that you needed."

Both Harry and Neville paused, looking at the other twin, waiting to see if he would take over the thread of conversation. After a pause just long enough to be awkward, they realized that the Weasleys were waiting for an answer. "Erm, no, I think we're all right," Harry said, looking at Neville to make sure.

"Yes," Neville added hastily, "but thank you for the offer."

"Yeah, thanks." Harry nodded earnestly and attempted a smile.

The twins' gaping grins grew wider in response to Harry's tentative one, and they bowed again together. "Well," they said in unison, before the one on the left (Neville was pretty sure it was Fred) took over again "It was delightful to meet you-"

"Absolutely smashing-"

"And we'll be seeing you soon-"

"Enjoy the ride!"

"And the Sorting!"

There was a moment's pause after the twins left the compartment, during which Neville tried to compose himself again. It was like letting your eyes adjust from the bright mid-day sunlight to the dimness of doorways and buildings. For the first few moments you step inside, the buildings seem as dark as a dungeon, and for the first few moments without the company of Fred and George, life seemed somewhat less colourful and much less sparkly.

"The Sorting?" Neville repeated, shooting Harry a questioning glance.

"Oh, Uncle Remus told me about that—it's where you get placed into your Hogwarts House. I hope I'm in Gryffindor like my parents and Uncle Remus."

"My parents were in Gryffindor too!"

"Mine were in Slytherin," drawled a new voice from the doorway.

Harry and Neville turned around once again, and Neville wondered idly if perhaps there were some sort of magical arrow pointing all Hogwarts students to their compartment… perhaps a magical arrow shaped like a lightning bolt.

If their previous guests had blown their eyes and left them with sparkling afterimages of vivid colour, this new boy had the exact opposite effect. He was pale, with hair so blonde that it was almost white and skin so white that it was almost transparent. Even his eyes seemed to have lost their colour and become a sort of dull gray that Neville had never before seen outside of stormclouds. Behind the small, pale boy with the pointed chin and grey eyes stood two hulking giants. They were probably boys, and almost definitely human, but they gave off such an aura of dimness (mentally) and strength (physically) that Neville had a few moments of doubt. They must have had some giant ancestry, or gotten caught at the wrong end of an Engorgement charm.

"I'm Draco Malfoy," the boy said, sticking out his hand. "This is Crabbe," he jerked his head to the left, "and Goyle." He paused, expectantly, and Neville took a moment to realize that he was waiting for Neville to shake his hand and introduce himself. Before he could force his awkward limbs to rise, however, Draco continued, "You didn't laugh at my name."

"My name is Neville Longbottom. I can't laugh at _anyone's_ name." He smiled, tentatively, and then shook Draco's proffered hand.

Draco paused before relinquishing Neville's hand and surveying him critically. "You're all right, Neville." He turned to Crabbe and Goyle, or possibly Goyle and Crabbe. Neville had already forgotten which of the mountains belonged to which of the names. "You two are dismissed."

Harry scowled at Draco. "He doesn't need _you_ to tell him that he's all right."

Draco turned to look at Harry and raised an elegant eyebrow. "And you are…"

"Harry Potter."

Draco nodded semi-approvingly and stuck out his hand a second time. "My apologies, Potter. I meant no offense. I was merely surprised."

Slightly taken aback by Draco's politeness, Harry lost his scowl. "I'm not the one you should be apologizing to. Call me Harry."

"Fine then, Harry." Draco turned to Neville. "Neville Longbottom, you have my sincerest apologies for doubting your…" Draco paused, seemingly at a loss for words, "all right-ness."

He bowed slightly, and then the sheer absurdity of the situation (and Draco's wording) struck the three boys, and they burst out laughing.

"Have a seat, Draco," Neville offered, sliding over to allow Draco room.

"Thanks," Draco said obligingly, seating himself gingerly next to Neville. Harry plopped down again across from the other two boys, grinning at Draco's unconscious wince. Of course, all three boys shot up again the next instant when a smiling, friendly old woman stuck her head into their compartment and said the magic words "Anything off the cart, dears?"

Each boy got three each of all his favorites, and they set themselves down to enjoy their copious bounty, constantly switching candies and chatting amicably about everything from Quidditch (Harry and Draco were mad for it, Neville was a little leery of the entire idea behind flying into the sky on something so flimsy as a broom) to classes (Harry was looking forward to Defense Against the Dark Arts, Draco to Potions, and Neville to Herbology, and a little bit to Potions, too.)

In the middle of one of Draco's stories about his Hogwarts in his father's day, Neville jumped suddenly and yelled "_What_ is _that_?"

Mr. Grodd was the name of one of my high school teachers who firmly believed that harsh criticism results in the best work. I disagree with that assessment.

((A/N: I told you that chapter two would be longer! I greatly appreciate any and all reviews, and I sincerely hope you're enjoying the story so far!))


	3. Trains and Toads and Giants Oh My!

Disclaimer: I do not own Neville, Harry, Draco, or Hogwarts. I would like to own a thestral, but my university doesn't allow pets in our dorms.

**Chapter 3: Trains and Toads and Giants – Oh My! **

Harry and Draco both pulled their wands, ready to protect Neville from whatever it was that was threatening him. Their green and grey eyes scanned the compartment, looking for danger as their blood hummed with a mix of adrenaline and magic. And then, they both started laughing.

"Sorry, Neville!" Harry apologized, somewhat less effectively than he might have liked since his apology was peppered with chuckles. "I forgot to warn you—that's Hedwig, my owl."

Neville's face drained of colour until it was only a shade or two darker than Draco's.

"What's wrong?" Harry asked, his amusement replaced with concern… well, mostly replaced. "You're not scared of owls, are you?"

Neville shook his head mutely.

"Then what is it?" asked Draco.

"I forgot Trevor!"

"Who?" Harry and Draco asked in unison, looking at each other blankly before turning their matching confused glances back to Neville.

"My toad! I lost him on the platform and I completely forgot to look for him! I forgot all about him! He's going to think I don't care about him any longer!"

"Neville," Draco said, staring at him, "it's just a toad."

"Trevor is not _just_ a toad!" Neville turned on Draco, his distress for Trevor making him forget the sharpness of his tone. "He's not _just_ a pet," Neville repeated in a quieter tone, "he's more like a friend."

Harry leaned over and clapped a hand on Neville's back, either to show companionship or sympathy, Neville really wasn't sure which. "I understand, Neville," Harry said sympathetically, "I haven't had my owl for that long, but if something happened to Hedwig I'd be upset about it."

"My dad taught me a locator spell," Draco said slowly, "I'm not very good at it yet, but I should be able to tell whether he's on the train or not."

"Oh, would you?" Neville asked, "Please?"

Draco was already holding his wand, so all he had to do was bring it up slowly with a look of fierce concentration on his pale, pointed face. In fact, Neville was pretty sure that his eyes darkened somehow, or maybe the train was just passing under a cloud.

Before he could do more than wave his wand once, another voice sounded from the doorway of the compartment, which Neville was seriously considering shutting and locking and not opening again until they reached Hogwarts, if then.

"Oh, are you doing magic?" asked the voice, which belonged to the bushy-haired girl Neville had seen earlier, the one who had apparently read all about him. "Let's see, then!"

Neville glanced at Harry and Draco, and he could already tell that the girl's imperious tone had rubbed them both the wrong way. Draco had subtly shifted direction so that his wand was pointed more or less at the newcomer, and Harry was glaring at her with a fierceness worthy of a basilisk, if said basilisk were glaring through a pair of large, black, slightly smudged glasses.

"Draco was just going to help me perform a finding spell, as I've lost my toad," Neville explained hurriedly.

"Well, you'd best do it quickly, as we're almost to Hogwarts. I'm just glad all of you are already wearing your school robes." The girl nodded approvingly, and Neville couldn't help picturing her with a giant stuffed vulture atop her head, swinging up and down and up and down… but Draco was speaking again.

"…only proper to introduce oneself before commenting on our wardrobe." Neville was astonished that he could _hear_ Draco's sneer.

"Sorry," the girl said, completely unabashed, "I'm Hermione Granger." She thrust forward a hand that Draco took delicately before inclining his head slightly.

"Draco Malfoy" he replied, dropping her hand a sliver of a second too quickly, though not so quickly as to be deemed impolite.

Harry rose, looking almost as excited to meet the new girl as Draco. "I'm Harry Potter," he said, giving her hand a firm shake before sitting back down.

"And I'm Neville Longbottom," Neville added, watching Hermione's eyes try to bore their way past his bangs to see his scar. He made no move to push back his hair.

"It's nice to meet you now what sort of finding spell were you going to perform and don't you have to have an object associated with the object for which you're looking?" asked Hermione as Neville wondered idly if punctuation marks got lonely on the Hogwarts Express since so few of his classmates seemed to use them. Perhaps there were no commas left to use since the Weasley terrors—erm, twins—took more than their share of dashes. The commas were probably in hiding, cowering in a corner and hoping not to be abused by anyone with flaming red hair and more freckles than skin.

Draco paused and gave Neville the impression that he was somehow looking down on Hermione, which must have been difficult, he was seated and she was still standing. He made a mental note to ask Draco to teach him the trick of it but quickly realized that his face was too round to look down on anyone. There was probably a pointy-chin rule, or perhaps a mathematical formula. The pointiness of one's chin was inversely proportional, or directly proportional (Neville wasn't that good at maths) to the height of one's sneer.

By that time, Draco was speaking again. "… so Neville, as the boy who owns the toad and is therefore more deeply connected with the toad than any mere object, can serve more than adequately as a sort of lodestone. Neville," Draco turned to face him, "if I might have your hand, the hand in which you hold your toad most often?"

Neville obediently held out his right hand, and Draco wiggled his wand in a complicated manner that looked to Neville as if a very tipsy snake were trying to demonstrate how many figure eights he could make before he passed out. Draco muttered something under his breath, and Neville's hand grew warm and began to shine with a warm green glow, the precise shade of Trevor's pebbled skin. "The brightness indicates closeness—your toad is definitely on the train, not back at the station—but he's probably more towards the front of the train… I'm not really sure because brightness is so relative."

"Wouldn't it work better if you used a quantitative value rather than a qualitative one? Something like-"

Neville interrupted her before anyone else could—he could see both Draco and Harry getting ready to say something that would probably make less than the best impression and might result in all of them getting into trouble before the school year even began. "I don't care how accurate it is—I'm just glad to know that Trevor is here. Thank you so much, Draco!"

Draco nodded congenially. "Of course, Neville. _I'm_ always glad to be helpful." There was the faintest emphasis on "I'm," so slight that Neville thought he might have imagined it until he saw the corners of Harry's mouth turn up ever-so-slightly.

Hermione noticed Draco's inflection as well. After her best impression of an "I'm fully aware that I'm better than all of you; I just don't feel like arguing the point right now" sniff, she turned on her heel and flounced out of the compartment.

"Bet she's a Mudblood," Draco added laconically as soon as he was certain she was out of earshot.

Neville gasped. "Draco!"

Harry reached towards his wand, saw that Draco's was still in his hand, thought better of it, and instead chose to say in a voice as sharp as a diamond dagger "Don't you _ever_ use that word in front of me."

Draco looked at Neville, then at Harry, then back at Neville. He opened his mouth, paused, closed his mouth, paused, and then finally said "My apologies, Neville. Harry. I didn't realize you'd take offense. I thought that a word like that would be appropriate for a girl so…"

"Bossy?" Neville offered.

"Overbearing?" added Harry.

"Plebian," Draco said with finality, flashing a grin to show both Neville and Harry that he was joking… at least Neville hoped that's what the grin meant. He wondered if "plebian" was a real word, and why did Draco know it when Neville didn't, and would he be the only Hogwarts student not to know that word, and why hadn't he packed a dictionary when he was selecting books to bring-

Just then, a voice echoed over the loudspeaker telling them all that they were five minutes away from Hogwarts and instructing them to leave their luggage on the train, as it would be taken separately. Neville breathed a sigh of relief. "I was getting so tired of carrying that trunk everywhere!"

"You had to carry your own trunk?" asked Draco, looking at Neville as if he'd just admitted to making all of his clothes out of the fur of baby rabbits that he slaughtered himself. "Don't you have house-elves for that sort of thing?"

"We have a house-elf, but Gran would never let her carry my trunk for me. Who knows what Uncle Algie would do without Yfandes?"

The world may never know what Uncle Algie would do without Yfandes, for it was at that precise moment that the Hogwarts Express came to a complete stop. As Neville disembarked from the train, he was sort of glad of the mass of people pressing in on all sides—the sky looked very dark and very big, and Neville silently appreciated the grounding presence of Harry on his left and Draco on his right, plus the _very_ grounding presence of the two blundering boulders Draco had managed to pick up again. What would it be like to be lost in the crowd forever? Speaking of lost, Neville hoped that Trevor counted as luggage and that he would be picked up and taken… wherever his trunk ended up.

It was then that Neville became aware of a giant (and Neville was pretty sure this man was an actual giant—he was a real mountain to the foothills that were young Grabbe and Coyle, or whatever their names were). The giant was bellowing instructions, calling all of the first years to the warm, welcoming light of the lantern that he held at his eye level, a good ten feet above Neville's own eyes. Neville hoped he was a nice giant, and really, would the Hogwarts staff send someone dangerous to pick up the first-years? Unless, of course, getting past the giant was how they did the Sorting, and his reaction now could determine the outcome of the next seven years of his life, and probably even life after that because everyone knew that certain jobs required you to graduate from a certain house with a certain set of skills…

With a start, Neville realized that Harry was talking to him in a low voice that he had to strain to here over the nervous chatter of the other first-years. "… to visit me a few times. He looks scary at first, but really he's awful nice."

Neville sincerely hoped the "he" Harry mentioned was the giant.

"I heard he was a sort of low-class servant," Draco said, the tone of his voice almost but not quite neutral.

"He's groundskeeper," Harry said, glaring at Draco. "He knows more about the Hogwarts grounds than anyone else, student, staff, _or_ faculty."

Draco appeared to digest this information. "That could certainly be useful one day, if, say, one wanted to…"

"Sneak out after dark?" Harry suggested with a raised eyebrow, appearing only slightly mollified by Draco's reluctance to continue insulting Hagrid.

Draco considered this the mark of a reconciliation achieved without the awkwardness of an apology, and returned Harry's raised eyebrow with one of his own, upping the ante with a smirk as well as he added in a voice to innocent to be believed, "Now, would I be planning to break rules before the term has even begun?"

One of the mini-mountains behind Draco tried to smother a sound that might have originally been a snort, but that came out more like a collision of two objects roughly the size and speed of the Hogwarts Express.

The giant spotted them, and Neville felt a thrill of fear, but he merely grinned, in a manner that Neville sincerely hoped was friendly and welcoming rather than vicious and bloodthirsty, and called out "All righ' there, Harry?"

Harry waved back, "Hullo, Hagrid!"

That must be the giant's name, then, Hagrid. He obviously hadn't eaten Harry yet, so Neville was pretty sure there was no actual danger. He fell in line between Draco (who was allowing his building-sized bodyguards to lead the way) and Harry, who was following gamely behind. Neville had to work extra-hard to keep his balance on the slippery, muddy, dirty, narrow path that they were following, especially as he had to use both his hands to hold up his robes so they wouldn't get all brown and splotchy before he even set foot in Hogwarts. His nose itched something awful, and no matter how many times Neville sniffed, he couldn't make it go away. He had just about made up his mind that he would try very slowly and surely to move one hand to scratch his nose while keeping close hold onto his robes and being ever so careful not to step on them or trip over them when Hagrid told them all to keep an eye out for their first view of the castle that would be their home for the next seven years.

Yfandes is a reference to another of my favorite fantasy worlds since I figured that people names really don't work for house-elves. You get a gold star if you can tell me from which fantasy world Yfandes comes!

((A/N: Thank you again for your fantastic reviews! Basic Mione, all of your worries about Draco's character will be explained in a letter around Halloween, and if I continue at my rate of a chapter a day, Halloween will get here pretty quickly! Of course, exam week is next week, so I promise nothing.))


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